


Routine

by Tridraconeus



Category: The Batman (Cartoon)
Genre: Drowning, Gen, Nightmares, Not really major character death; it's dreamed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:39:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1894248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a nightmare like he's had it a hundred (thousand, million?) times before. The bottom of Gotham bay, water leaking through every rusted hole. Except now he's alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Routine

**Author's Note:**

> Originally sent to a fellow roleplayer as a meme response, now tied neatly up and finished. (Forever, blame and thanks to twistedmidnightdreams.)

God it _hurt_. Light popped in his vision, colored dots of agony that danced past shuttered eyelids. Immediately he can tell what’s causing it (a cocktail of oxygen and sleep and general nutrient deprivation and painpain _pain_ ) because he’s a genius and it’s in his nature to immediately know. He’d know this wretched tin can anywhere, he’d know the exact amount of pressure that’s making it slowly cave in, the exact pH of the corrugated rusty metal that’s pressing close (pressing him). In the other dreams (it’s a dream, he knows, he _always_ knows and it’s as much of a curse as it is a blessing) the Bat has been there with him but now he’s alone. Had he been shoved in here to slowly suffocate? To sink further into both Gotham harbor and into his own panicky mind, rid Gotham of just another menace? The blood wouldn’t be on the Bat’s hands, then. It would be an honest accident.

He can’t breathe easily, and it’s really a pity, because in the real world he’s probably kicked off, the bedsheet, quilt, and fitted sheet to the ground as well as the pillow and most likely his shirt and ma- _aaaaaaa_ -ybe his pants. It had happened before. It would be just like then, waking up drenched and terrified. Maybe not in the same place (in his dreams he was. He felt like a fucking sardine) but definitely in the same mentally frayed condition. Should he hold his arms out against the inexorable pressure, win himself a few more moments of fevered sleep, or let it crush together and snap spindly bones and a fragile body into pieces and throw him back to the waking world? Sharkchum, the term crosses his mind for a second, before being replaced with Crocchum. Maybe Waylon would make a surprise appearance.

Of course he wouldn’t. That was stupid. Edward was not stupid. Riddler was not stupid. Riddler was trapped.

When rats are backed into a corner, they cower. And when it is obvious that cowering will do no good, they fight back. Edward sighed, bracing himself against the pressure, knee joints creaking and protesting to the new standing position as he struggled in the knee-deep water, and pushed against the steel.

Riddler (not Riddler right now, _Edward_ ) is not strong, he never pretended to be. So soon enough there’s a familiar crack of metal buckling and he screams out as the shipping container crumples.

-and then he wakes up, not screaming (never screaming), just panting and sweating buckets. Sure enough he’s on the plastic mattress protector and in nothing but his boxers, the heap of fabric at the foot of the bed and also the floor proving that he wouldn’t be forgetting this one any time soon.


End file.
